Van der Wiel, the new Frank de Boer?

sorry Jan, it was against dynamo _zagreb_. is van der viel dutch? i think he’s belgian but not too sure about it…

Posted from  Hungary

Ferenc…you’re a bit more switched on then me…. Sorry for the mistake.

Now I have your attention, why isn’t Iniesta a regular starter for Barca? I think that is one of the best players in Europe these days. Like him better than Xavi, he’s on par with Fabregas to me. Please explain…

Posted from  Australia

Wiel is born in Amsterdam…

Posted from  Australia

I read in ajax official site, his height is only 172 com. Is it true?

Posted from  Indonesia

If the site says so, it probably isn’t. They lie!

Just kiddin’ . It’s probably true… That is not big. Damn, these guys should eat more red meat!

Posted from  Australia

Yeah I saw van der Wiel when he made his debut in the league this spring. Played a couple of games and looked pretty good I must say. Very interesting player. I think Ferenc is thinking of Thomas Vermaelen, who is indeed a young, Belgian Ajax defender.

Iniesta often performs best when he comes in as a sub. He gets more and more minutes on the pitch and I think Rijkaard will let Deco, Xavi and Iniesta play equally much, though the midfield works very poorly when Deco is not in it.

Thanks Ferenc. How old is Xavi these days? Are there any good midfielders coming up at Barca? Who do you think is the best alternative for Deco when he leaves/retires/can’t cope with it anymore?

Posted from  Australia

Jan: xavi is 27 (or 28). to be honest,i don’t know who will replace deco if he quits barca one day. we will probably buy someone… iniesta is really talented,fast,good dribbler,he reads the play. very polyvalent but not too strong phisycally. he’s one of the best midfielders in europe. anyway he’s one of my favourite barca player, just after messi – who i consider the best player of the world – and ronnie… unfortunately now we are better without ronnie than with him. hope that time would change… don’t forget that we have a fantastic holding midfielder: yaya toure (he’s good in defending,with his head too, and has a terrible shot,technically and physically perfect),very compley player. so he’s always in the starting eleven,and rijkaard rotates the 3 orhers for 2 positions. he’s our best summer signing.

what is good too that we have 2 fantastic young talents: giovani dos santos and bojan krkic. so i can imagine that one of them can easily play midfielder to replace deco in the case… but to be honest, deco won’t leave barca. maybe in 3 years. i’m not so sure about ronnie…

(we need some dutch players. the problem is that i can only see emmanuelson – but abidal is still better. i would have prefered van persie instead of henry. i have no problems with titi but he’s not dutch.)

it would be interesting to compare real and barca by posts. let’s start it.

victor valdes – casillas 0-1
torres – zambrotta 1-1
cannavaro – puyol (same level)
metzelder (or peppe) – milito 2-1
abidal – heintze(or drenthe or marcelo) 3-1

xavi/iniesta – guti/robinho 4-1
yaya toure – diarra (same level)
deco – sneijder (same level)

messi – raul (this is not exactly raul’s position but…) 5-1
eto’o/henry – ruud (same level)
ronnie (or dos santos) – robben 6-1

Posted from  Hungary

in place of torres i think it’s sergio ramos. and diarra (€26 M) probably better than toure(€10m) and we should compare messi with robinho (although messi wins)

victor valdes – casillas 0-1
zambrotta – ramos 0-2
puyol – cannavaro (same level)
milito – peppe 1-2
abidal – heinze 1-3

xavi/iniesta – guti /gago 2-3
yaya toure – diarra (2-4)
deco – sneijder (same level)

messi – robinho 3-4
eto’o/henry – ruud/saviola (same level)
ronnie (or dos santos)- raul (or higuain)4-4

sorry,i thought ramos but i wrote torres. nevertheless i think zambrotta is better than ramos.

Posted from  Hungary

Hala Madrid, hala Madrid!!!

Ruud, Robben, Sneijder and Drenthe!

Mario: have you always been a real fan? i mean supporting a team is for our whole life whatever happens to this time and whoever plays in it. i feel this with oranje,barca and ajax.

Posted from  Hungary

actually i think it’s really funny that a mexican oranje fan and a hungarian oranje fan are ardent supporters of the 2 iberian arch-rivals: the castilian real madrid and the catalonian barcelona:-)))))

Posted from  Hungary

ferenc, you have to take your barca-love glasses off… ramos is better than zambrotta for sure, and he still has huge future in front of him. I don’t know much about milito, but metzelder is looking very solid, and the cannavaro-metzelder pairing is already shaping up to be real good.
I have to agree with Xerox’s rating. Barca winning the comparison 6-1 is just way too unrealistic (just look at the standings and who are the champions). 4-4 sounds much more correct.

Posted from  Japan

Where is Helguera?? He was one of my faves at Real. My most fave player with Zidane was Redondo!!! That was a master. Him and Guardiola (Barca)…

Posted from  Australia

helguera went to valencia this summer. i like him too.

Posted from  Hungary

Im a Barcelona fan through and through. Barcelona is a left-leaning club, Real Madrid sticks close to the Franco days, meaning that with or without Dutch players.. Barcelona is still the most Dutch of the two.

Barcelona has two really exciting midfield talents… Jonathan dos Santos, brother of Giovanni, and Israelian Gai Assulin. I hope one of them can take over when Xavi gets old but from what ive seen, none of them looks like Deco really. We’ll probably have to buy a replacement to Deco when the day come and thats a bit troublesome because players who run as much as Davids and Deco and with the same technique is pretty hard to find.

Lerkot: i remember when cruyff signed at barca he said that he would never play for franco’s favourite club. and you’re absolutely right: we are the dutch club in spain. just have a look at the city of barcelona: to some extent you have the same feeling like in amsterdam. on the other side,madrid is a boring city.

Posted from  Hungary